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Purposeful Living – At Work and At Home

Live with purpose and always strive to improve. That’s my motto. Fortunately, I work for a company where I get to live this out on a daily basis.

As Global Brand Advisor at FedEx, I manage branding and messaging for EarthSmart, our corporate commitment to environmental sustainability. I may not look the part while I’m at FedEx World Headquarters, but the truth is, I’m something of a country girl. I live in a little town called Lewisburg, Mississippi, with my husband and kids. We enjoy the simpler things in life like raising chickens, composting, and growing our own vegetables and herbs. We do what we can to ensure our kids, and someday our grandkids, get to experience life’s simple pleasures.

As a working mom, my time is limited. I can’t hand wash and line dry our laundry, but I can make little changes here and there. Some people might find it hard to imagine that one family can make a real difference for the planet, but my role at FedEx has given me the unique opportunity to appreciate the impact of incremental change. We’ve all heard this time and again: small changes add up over time. It makes a big impression when you witness it firsthand.

We tackle the big stuff through EarthSmart — things like swapping out vehicles for low-emission hybrid electrics, using cleaner fuel, building LEED-certified facilities, and instituting paperless processing. Our recycling programs have helped us save about 18,000 trees every six months.

But EarthSmart isn’t just about large-scale innovations. It’s also about making incremental change by improving daily habits. In our more than 1,800 FedEx Office centers, we streamlined our administrative processes for a savings of four million pieces of paper each year. At airports, we retrofitted our ground support equipment to run via electric power for a savings of one million gallons of fuel each month. And in our Asia-Pacific region, couriers are employing five simple driving techniques that conserve as much fuel as switching to hybrid vehicles. The list goes on.

This is just the beginning. EarthSmart isn’t just one program; it’s a whole host of initiatives that are transforming the way we do business. Beyond the business applications of EarthSmart, FedEx contributes time, expertise, and other resources to support community programs that promote sustainable transportation, cities, and ecosystems. Like me, FedEx is continuously striving to improve. Everything we do is dedicated to the purpose of connecting the world in responsible and resourceful ways, and positively impacting the communities we serve. I encourage you to find out more about our sustainability efforts at earthsmart.fedex.com.

Living with purpose and constantly striving to improve — that’s me, and that’s FedEx.

Rebecca Janes is a Global Brand Advisor at FedEx World Headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee. In addition to her role of managing EarthSmart branding and messaging, Rebecca has responsibility for the branding, performance, and customer experience of all FedEx-branded packaging throughout the world.